it wasn't a pity invite
by elanev91
Summary: Part of the December "Winter Tropes" Jily challenge. Prompt: my family invites you to join our holiday meal as an obvious setup and omG i'm so sorry


**This wee story is part of the December "Winter Tropes" jily challenge! My glorious partner is **** jilyyall**

**Prompt: my family invites you to join our holiday meal as an obvious setup and omG i'm so sorry**

**I hope you all have an incredibly happy holiday, whatever you celebrate this time of year. If you don't celebrate anything, I hope you have a lovely December and that 2020 kicks off spectacularly for you x**

**ALSO HEADS UP: they're surgeons in this story so there is some mention of surgeries they're doing/injuries they're fixing. There's literally no detail, things are just named, but I wanted to give you a heads up in case that's triggering for you.**

**ALSO - UGH I FORGOT FFN SUCKS. It deleted my emojis. APOLOGIES.**

* * *

'Lily? I — uh. Hi.' James was standing there, holding the edge of the front door and staring at her, jaw literally dropped, like he couldn't believe that he was actually seeing what he was seeing.

Which would have been one thing if he hadn't known she was coming or if Lily had been standing on his front step on her hands, a fucking Santa hat balanced on her arse, like some perverse version of those terrifying TikToks Marlene had taken to sending her in the middle of the night because she knew it was the only thing that was going to keep Lily up through a night shift, or, god, even worse, like those TikToks of the Amazon boxes, the 'I smell pennies' boxes, skittering around the floor with their limbs out all crazy like. Even thinking about those, hearing that voice in her head, Lily was this close to making an actual, audible sound.

But so it would have been one thing if she was standing on James' parents' step like that. Would have explained the look on his face.

But no. She was standing on his step in a normal winter coat wearing a normal Christmas jumper and holding a tin of normal, and incredibly delicious, homemade mince pies in her hands.

Not that she'd homemade them, you know — Mary had — but it still counted.

Lily looked at him for a moment, the barest trace of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. He was wearing a deep red jumper today and black, or maybe dark navy, trousers, and she hadn't seen him, really ever, in actual clothes. His scrubs were nice, but there was something about this look that just really suited him.

Like, she knew that he had a life outside the hospital — they both did, though she felt like hers was something she'd made up at this point rather than something that actually existed — but she hadn't really had a way to picture him outside the cool tiles and white walls of the hospital until now.

Not that she was picturing him.

'Hi, James.' She shifted the tin in her hands and James, realising that she was holding something, immediately stuck his hand out. Lily handed him the tin.

'Thanks.' She folded her hands in front of her, feeling vaguely useless now that she wasn't holding anything. 'They're uh — mince pies. Homemade.'

James took a step back so that Lily could come through into the house. There was soft music playing from speakers she couldn't see — it sounded like Ariana Grande's Christmas album, which was really quite unexpected — and she could hear the sound of people chattering away at the far end of the house.

'You didn't have to bring anything.' He looked down at the top of the tin like he'd be able to see through it. 'Make sure you tell Mary thanks.'

Lily shot him a look as she shrugged out of her coat. James just grinned at her.

* * *

If you'd asked Lily her Christmas plans a month ago — hell, if you'd asked her a few days ago — she would have told you she wasn't going to do a damn thing.

She was going to sit at home. Wear pyjamas all day, eat gingerbread, FaceTime with her mam (and her da, though mostly just the top of his head and only for a few minutes before he started raging about not being able to use the bloody thing, but still, _her da_). No, she wasn't going to do a damn thing — she wasn't even going to go to mass, which she wasn't going to tell her mam that because she didn't need the bloody lecture (god love her, but for fuck's sake, Lily was old enough now to decide whether she wanted to go to mass or not) — because this was another year that she couldn't afford the flight back home and, even if she could, she was on call at the hospital on Christmas, working a shift on Boxing Day, and another on the 28th and so she just —

It wasn't worth it. You know, to try to cobble together the flight just so that she could do the grand tour around Derry (because she couldn't just go home and see her family, no, she'd have to go everywhere and see everyone and hear about their Christmases, their cousins, their jobs, the weird thing they saw down the pub last week, the conflict at the bingo, the….)

'We're proud of you, certainly, Lily, becoming a doctor and all that,' her mam had said when she'd called in mid-November to tell them that she wasn't coming home again this year. 'We are, but I didn't realise it meant we'd never see you round here anymore. We just miss you is all.'

And bloody hell, you could put the entire Irish Sea between her and her mam, but guilt, apparently, travelled at light fucking speed because that hit her instantly.

And then her da had made it better and worse in his own way. 'Your mam almost put in a word with Saint Anthony about you the other day, you know. She was in the kitchen all, "Oh, Saint Anthony, the grace of God has made you the patron saint all things lost or stolen"', he'd said, when Mam had handed over the phone. His imitation of her mother's voice was nearly bang on and Lily knew that she was probably rolling her eyes in the background.

Lily'd laughed. 'Which am I?'

And then he'd sighed. 'Depends on the day.'

So, you know, if you'd asked Lily what she was going to be doing for Christmas, she would have said that she wasn't going to be doing anything, but, really, she was going to be sitting on her couch, drinking tea and pretending it was mulled wine, eating gingerbread and pretending it was her mam's, and trying to avoid the fucking avalanche of guilt that was crashing over her like a goddamn tidal wave every two seconds.

Things like this reminded her of that _Derry Girls _episode.

Another difference between Catholics and Protestants — all the fucking guilt.

So she was doing nothing.

At least, she'd been planning on doing nothing until Euphemia Potter invited her to Christmas dinner.

* * *

James set the mince pies down on the table near the entry and held his hand out for Lily's coat. She looked at him for a moment, her eyebrows furrowed, and James just smiled at her.

'I'll hang it up for you.'

She pointed at the cupboard near the door. 'This where it'll go?'

James nodded, and so Lily opened the cupboard door, pulled out a spare hanger and, after looping her scarf over the top, stuck her coat on the rail and shut the door. James just shook his head a little, an amused smile on his face, before he grabbed the tin of mince pies again.

'Alright, well, everyone's through here.'

Lily toed her shoes off quickly, noting James' socked feet and the neat row of shoes near the door, and started through the house behind him.

And this house — fucking hell, it was gorgeous. She'd expected it would be, you know, you don't knock together a solicitor and a doctor and end up working class, or even working class _adjacent_, but christ almighty, you could fit three of her parents house in the fucking entry alone. And it wasn't even the size, really, that drew her eye, though it did fascinate her, it was just the look of it all.

The soft, almost warm cream paint on the walls. The rich wood floors that ran throughout. They had paintings on the walls, too, massive paintings that were, like, at least a few feet square. And they weren't any that Lily knew, you know, but the colours were vibrant, they were almost electric, like they glowed that brightly against the white canvas, and each painting had a little light that shone down onto it from above and fucking hell like —

Was she in the fucking National Gallery? What even was this?

'I like your paintings,' she said, and christ, she sounded awkward as hell didn't she. She pointed at one on the wall as they passed, the one with the enormous red swipes across it. Calling it swipes really seemed to cheapen it, make it less than it was because, really, she did like this painting even if she couldn't describe it.

'Ah, cheers,' James smiled at her and turned, stopping in the middle of the hallway so that Lily jolted to an awkward stop next to him. 'My brother Sirius painted them. He'll be chuffed that you like them.'

'You — your _brother _painted these?' She gestured around at the others, the bright, true blue one, the vivid yellow, and James nodded.

'He's finishing up at the Royal College of Art this year,' James said, looking back at the red painting in front of them, 'a course on Contemporary Art Practice with an emphasis on the public's relationship to art and the role of the artist in shaping culture.' James waved a hand like he wasn't really sure he was summarising it properly, but Lily could tell that, summarising correctly or not, he was buzzing. Pride coated every word. Lily couldn't believe he hadn't told her this before, though she supposed they were usually talking about things like burn protocols and quizzing each other on the steps of their next surgical preps (and also a fair bit of coaching like, 'No, James, you absolutely will not kill the small child you're going to have on your table later, you've done a half dozen appendectomies now and they've all gone splendidly!') rather than talking about, you know, their _lives._

She wished that they'd gotten to talk about things like this before.

'He did these last year,' James continued. 'He was working on his exhibition piece and this was something he'd been toying with, but he didn't like them for the show. He wanted to get rid of them if you can believe it.'

'What the fuck.' Lily's jaw dropped a little. 'Really?'

James nodded, smiling at her reaction. 'Mum basically said that exact same thing. Hence.' He gestured at the paintings on the walls.

There were little crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.

'Well, I'm glad she saved them,' Lily said. She shifted her foot a little awkwardly along the hardwood and James nodded, 'Me, too,' before he sighed.

'Anyway, sorry for the detour.' He started walking back down the corridor towards the back of the house. 'I'm surprised Mum didn't come looking for us,' he said, grinning almost conspiratorially. 'She was ready to hang me two seconds ago because I didn't get the devil's on horseback out the _moment _the oven timer went off.'

She raised her eyebrows at him, amusement tugging at the corners of her lips, and James rolled his eyes at her. 'She goes a little mental whenever we're having people over.'

'Who're you having over?'

James shrugged. 'You, mostly.'

Lily snorted. 'I'm hardly "people".'

'You're definitely people, Lil,' James said, smiling at her. 'We're thrilled to have our wee Derry girl over for dinner.' He did his best, with "wee Derry girl", to say it in a Derry accent. If Lily had been eating or drinking anything, she would have choked on it.

'That was atrocious.'

James just grinned at her.

* * *

She would have said no to Euphemia's invitation if she'd been expecting it. Or, you know, she would have tried at least. She still probably would have ended up here anyway, tin of something in hand, whether she'd been expecting it or not because she couldn't say no to things. Not well anyway.

But she would have tried. She would have made an effort.

She just didn't want to impose and, honestly, she didn't really even want to be anywhere other than her flat for Christmas anyway. If she wasn't going to be in Derry three-quarters comatose with a stomach full of her mam's cooking, she was going to be sitting in her little East London flat with her pathetic tree and the crucified Jesus her mother had given her staring at her through the wood of the drawer that Lily had stuffed him in when she'd found him in her moving boxes a year ago.

But, no, Euphemia had caught her completely off guard with this invitation and so then Lily had had no choice but to say yes.

They were walking out of the operating theatre, for Christ's sake. She'd gotten to do her first solo exploratory laparotomy. It hadn't been fair, taking advantage of her like that when she'd been riding high.

'Are you doing anything for the holidays, Lily?' Euphemia stepped down hard on the foot pedal for the bin inside the scrub area and started peeling off her kit.

'Oh,' Lily peeled off her face mask and reached back to start unknotting her gown, 'no, I'm not going back to Derry this year. I'm on call, you know.'

'Ah,' Euphemia nodded and, with a snap, peeled off her gloves, one sliding seamlessly over the other to avoid contamination, and tossed them into the bin. She walked over to the sink, rolling her sleeves up her forearms and stepped on the pedal on the floor to start the tap. 'That's a shame.'

'No,' Lily shook her head. 'I mean, honestly,' she laughed a little, 'I could use the on-call pay.'

Euphemia smiled at her, a small little thing that, unexpectedly, made Lily's chest ache a bit.

Her mam looked at her like that sometimes.

Not all that often, mind, and definitely not these days, but still. Sometimes.

Lily pumped soap onto her forearms and started scrubbing.

'Well, we're having a little dinner at ours,' Euphemia said absently. She was cleaning under her nails with a nail pick, but Lily could tell she was watching her out of the corner of her eye. Lily waited, sure she wasn't done, but Euphemia didn't say anything.

Lily cleared her throat. 'That sounds lovely.'

'It will be.' Euphemia rinsed her arms and, when she was finished, she raised her elbow up in front of the towel dispenser so it would spit out a paper towel. 'You should come.'

'Oh, uh —'

'We're in Primrose Hill,' Euphemia said. She dried her arms and tossed her towel into the bin, but Lily was still washing and couldn't fucking escape yet. Euphemia smiled at her. 'We're just up from the hospital, so if you get called in, you're even closer than you normally are.'

'I mean, yeah, I —'

'Oh, wonderful.' Euphemia's smile widened and Lily had wanted to say that, uh, she hadn't agreed to _come_, she'd just agreed that it was closer to the hospital than _fucking Leyton_, but —

'I think James has your number, right?' Euphemia continued, apparently oblivious to Lily's brain stalling out. 'I'll have him text you our address.'

'Yeah,' Lily tossed her nail pick into the bin, 'James has my number.'

They'd exchanged numbers at the beginning of their first foundation year, a whole lifetime ago, but they didn't really text each other that much outside of work things.

Well, they texted a fair bit, but it didn't seem like that much when she compared it to how often she and Marlene or she and Mary were texting each other.

Euphemia beamed. 'Brilliant.'

And then she swept her surgical cap off, tucking it into her scrubs pocket as she strode through the door back out onto the ward.

And Lily would have dropped her head into her hands if she just hadn't spent two minutes scrubbing them.

Bloody hell.

* * *

'Everyone, this is Lily Evans.' James had led her into the kitchen and now she was standing there like an arsehole smiling at a bunch of people she didn't know, a cool dozen at least, doing her best not to awkwardly twist her hands together.

Her mam always said that wringing her hands made her look like she was guilty of something.

The only thing she was guilty of now was trying to figure out how to kill James in front of everyone without anyone seeing and, to distract herself, estimate how many bedrooms the Potters had upstairs.

Did they have eight bedrooms like Jenny Joyce? Probably.

'She's a junior doctor at the hospital with me,' James said, smiling down at Lily. 'She's a trauma surgeon.'

There were a few mumbled comments — things like 'That's great,' and 'Wow' — and Lily raised her hand in awkward greeting.

'Hi, everyone.'

If anyone was startled by her accent, they didn't show it.

She was about to round on him the moment everyone went back to their conversations and hiss about the fact that he'd not properly prepared her for this number of people — in fact he'd said _she _was the "people" they were having over and left it at that, didn't say anything about the fact that he was leading her into a _room_ of fucking people — but then James smiled at her again, a bracing sort of smile this time, before he moved over to set her mince pies on the kitchen island that was absolutely _laden _with food, and she didn't know why he was looking at her like that, but he hoped that — well, he hoped that she knew she appreciated it. Without, you know, her having to tell him as much.

Not that she was necessarily in such a taxing situation that she needed _support _but, still, big gatherings weren't exactly her thing. Not here, anyway. And especially when she hadn't been prepared for them.

Wee English bastard.

A tall man with salt and pepper hair stepped forward the moment James had walked off, and, sweet suffering Jesus, he was the spitting image of James in thirty years, right down to the glasses halfway down the bridge of his nose and the mischievous sparkle in his hazel eyes. He held his hand out to Lily as he approached and, when Lily took his hand, he lightly rested his other hand on hers as they shook. Not enough that it was creepy, you know, like he was pulling her to him or anything, but enough that it was sort of endearing.

'It's nice to finally meet you, Lily, love. I'm Fleamont, James' father.' He had a thick Scottish accent, thick as fucking treacle, and Lily couldn't help but smile. 'James' talked of nothing but you for the last year and a half —'

'Oi, Dad.' James swept over, a frown on his face so deep that it rivalled the Mariana fucking Trench. 'He's losing his mind in his old age,' James said, looking at Lily. 'No idea what he's talking about.'

Fleamont laughed, a loud, deep laugh that sounded, too, impossibly like James', and wrapped his arm around James' shoulders. 'You're right, son. It must have been your mother talking about her, then.'

'I do tend to go on about how brilliant she is, yes.' Euphemia swept over from somewhere Lily hadn't seen, her whole face lit up with a smile. She bent down and kissed Lily on the cheek. 'Happy Christmas, Lily, dear. I'm glad you could join us.'

'Thanks for having me, Dr. Potter,' Lily said, but Euphemia held up her hand.

'Euphemia, please! We're not at work, are we? No need for all that.'

James' eyes lit up with amusement across from her. Lily smiled a little at him before she nodded at Euphemia.

'Well, thanks for having me Euphemia.'

'That's the spirit.' Euphemia clapped her hands together and looped her arm through Lily's leading her away towards the other side of the kitchen towards, god, she hadn't seen it before, but there was practically an entire _pub _here on the counter, wasn't there? 'What can I get you to drink?'

'Oh.' Lily cleared her throat awkwardly. 'Nothing, I — I'm on call tonight.'

'Ah, right.' Euphemia tipped her head, her lips pressed together for a beat. 'Well, we've got some spiced apple juice with clementine,' she led Lily over to a slow cooker on the counter and lifted off the lid. 'It's not quite as good as the mulled wine, but it's delicious! James found some recipe from the BBC.' Euphemia waved a hand like she wasn't at all sure about the ability of the BBC to distribute food recipes.

Lily smiled at her. 'That'd be great, thanks.'

* * *

'Why are you making such a colossal fucking deal out of going to Potter's for Christmas? It's not like, after the turkey, Euphemia's going to march you out into the garden and declare you husband and wife.'

Marlene and Lily were sat on the sofa late on the afternoon of the 21st, both of them clutching cups of tea, Marlene casually and Lily like her life fucking depended on it. And she supposed, you know, in a way, it did, because she'd worked an overnight the night before and only just woken up and, despite five whole hours of sleep, she still wasn't feeling any more sane than when she'd gone to bed.

It was her lack of sanity that explained her decision to tell Marlene about Euphemia inviting her to dinner.

And also the motivation behind what you could technically call her "anxiety" or "panic", though Lily would never call it that herself. And she was a medical professional now, so her opinion on these things counted.

She'd done a whole psych rotation in her first foundation year. She knew what she was talking about.

'I — ugh, that's not even in the vicinity of where my mind's at,' Lily said. 'I just think —'

'So you're not afraid that extensive time with James outside work will force you to acknowledge your feelings for him?' Marlene said. She was eyeing Lily like she thought she was going to break her, but there was nothing there to break.

That sounded a little tragic, but she hadn't meant it that way. She just meant that she was trying to get something out of her that didn't fucking exist.

'No.' Lily took a swift sip of her tea. 'And I don't have feelings for him,' she added, seeing the look on Marlene's face at her omission.

Marlene snorted into her tea. 'Mhmm.'

'I hope you choke on that.'

'Lucky for me, if I do, you're a doctor.'

Lily gave her the finger.

Because, really, and she wasn't just saying this, she didn't have feelings for James Potter. Sure, they hung out a fair bit at work — and, okay, they had a secret hangout spot on the stairs behind Theatre Three's observation deck where they went whenever the on call room was full and they needed to have a chat they didn't want to have in front of the whole bloody hospital — and ,okay, they liked to text each other memes from time to time, but it was not the deep thing Marlene assumed it was. Marlene had honestly just gotten it into her fucking head that Lily secretly wanted to "strip him out of his scrubs and fuck him in the middle of A&E" and she wouldn't let it go.

Like, literally, that was a thing Marlene had said to her once. Lily had been beet red for a fucking week. Absolutely broke to the fucking bone.

And, okay, that particular incident had been partially Lily's fault because she'd made a passing comment once, once, about the fact that James looked nice in his scrubs, but also that comment had nowhere near required Marlene's response.

Or, you know, Lily's occasional trip down the wee yellow brick road in her mind where she, for some reason, thought about that comment quite a bit.

'It'll just be weird, I think, being at someone else's Christmas,' Lily said. 'I don't feel like I know the rules.'

'It's Christmas,' Marlene said, raising her eyebrows at her. 'How many bloody rules can there be?'

'You must not know any Catholics.'

Marlene snorted. 'Well, Euphemia invited you. Like without you even prompting. So I reckon you're welcome.'

'It could still be a pity invite.'

'Oh, right. Well,' Marlene tilted her head to the side, almost like she was reconsidering something, 'except for the fact that we both know it isn't.'

Lily hummed and took a pointed sip of her tea.

* * *

Despite not knowing a single soul beyond James and Euphemia, Lily managed to introduce and endear herself to at least half the room over the course of the next hour. Euphemia had swept her over, glass of warm, spiced apple juice in her hand, to a group of random people and then swept away again, saying something about having the check on the turkey and that, basically, had been that.

Luckily growing up in Derry had more than prepared her for having to talk to enormous rooms full of strangers.

She found James' brother Sirius, though, fairly early into the evening, and Sirius' boyfriend, Remus, and it was easy, after complimenting Sirius' work, to talk to him for a bit about his degree and his art (and, surprisingly, Instagram, because he was doing a good bit on Instagram). It was a helpful warm up, you know, talking to them, because with Sirius, she didn't need to do much of the talking. Remus was a little quieter — a low bar, compared to Sirius — but she appreciated them both, liked them both. It was more than she was expecting, having Sirius take her mobile and enter his number in barely a few minutes into conversation, but, as James told her when he slid up next to her a while later to introduce her to some other people in his family, Sirius was just the sort of bloke who liked to get down to business.

'He's quite a ride, too, your brother,' Lily had whispered up to him, a teasing smile tugging at the corner of her lips. 'Pity he's got a boyfriend.'

'And pity for you he's also, to quote Sirius, "gay as absolute hell",' James said. He put his hand on the small of Lily's back and turned them around to the group behind them. 'Aunt Joyce, this is Lily. Lily, Aunt Joyce is a sixth form teacher. She teaches French.'

James had eventually been pulled away by his uncle — Iain, she thought, but she couldn't remember now — but Lily had stayed talking to James' aunt. They didn't talk about much, mostly about Scotland because Joyce lived in Castle Douglas, which Lily thought was proper class but only because it made her think of that Bob Mortimer bit, not because she had any actual experience with the place. Eventually, though, the energy required to continue carrying on conversation started to become too much, and Lily decided to take herself outside to get some air.

She excused herself on the pretence of getting another glass of juice — and she did, you know, skitter through the party and get more — before she stepped out through the back door and into the garden.

No one else was mental enough to be sitting out here, but she'd opened the door purposefully enough that people probably just assumed she was going for a smoke.

They also probably assumed the she a right fucking eejit, coming out here without a coat on in the middle of winter.

And, well, she couldn't fault them for that, you know, it _was_ cold, but she also relished the feeling of the chill against her skin, especially after the heat inside the Potter's house. Between the oven going while the turkey finished cooking, the warm drink in her hands, the heating, and the fact that there were a million people in there, Lily's skin had flushed pink barely a few minutes in. After well over an hour, it had become nearly unbearable.

Hence.

There were a few chairs out here, but Lily opted to sit on the steps at the edge of the deck, her toes hanging over the very bottom step so they were nearer to the grass. She was tempted to walk out into the garden, but she wasn't wearing her shoes and the last thing she needed was to freeze her feet to blocks of ice (or soak her socks through on the probably damp ground and end up tracking mud all over the Potter's floor).

You couldn't see much from the Potter's back garden. There were trees, tall, slender, now leafless trees, dotted throughout, and a small greenhouse in the back that, though it was dark, Lily could tell was packed to. Mostly, though, if you wanted a view, you could look up to the sky, though it was too light polluted to see much, or you could look into the house behind them.

And Lily didn't exactly fancy herself the sort to be staring in other peoples' windows, you know.

She shifted her hips on the wood, enough that she could pull her mobile out of her back pocket. She checked, at first, just to make sure that she hadn't missed a call from the hospital — she was always deeply, deeply paranoid when she was on call — but then, notifications empty, she clicked into Instagram and took a minute to have a little scroll instead.

A lot of it wasn't anything exciting — people from work posting pictures of them in their holiday outfits, posing with their significant others under mistletoe, Christmas lunch spreads, children sitting in front of piles of gifts, elated smiles on their faces — but she still double tapped her thumb over pictures every now and again. She'd been scrolling for a minute or so when she came upon a picture that her sister had posted.

Petunia, their parents, and her horrid husband standing up against the city walls back in Derry. Christmas jumpers and smiles abound.

_Grateful one of us was able to travel home this Christmas._

Lily exhaled hard and locked her phone, barely resisting the urge to chuck it into the grass. 'Dick.'

'Whoa.'

Lily nearly jumped straight out of her skin. She'd been so wrapped up in what she was doing that she hadn't heard anyone open the door. She whipped around in her seat, not being careful enough not to spill her juice and, of course, spilling a little bit on the knee of her jeans, and saw James standing at the other end of the deck.

'Sorry.' He reached up and brushed his hair back off his forehead. 'I didn't mean to startle you.'

'It's okay,' Lily said. Her eyes flicked, once, over the length of him before she turned back around. 'You didn't.'

James made a sound that, to Lily, sounded a little bit like a laugh. She had half a mind to challenge him on it, but she decided not to indulge him.

James walked across the deck and came to sit down next to her. Lily didn't shift to make any extra space and James didn't wedge himself up against the wooden railing on his left, so they ended up sitting so close that they were nearly touching.

But they weren't, you know. Touching.

Just _nearly_.

'Everything alright?'

She could see him looking at her out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't turn to meet his gaze.

'Aye.' She'd been going for a light, breezy sort of tone, but she wasn't sure that she achieved it, judging by the way that James was still looking at her. All brows furrowed and lips turned down.

'You sure?'

Lily sighed and spun her mobile in a small circle where it was resting on her thigh. 'My sister's just a fucking dick.'

James sighed, a sympathetic rather than impatient sound. 'I remember you said before that you and your sister didn't get on well.'

'Yeah, well, that's a fucking understatement.' She was quiet for a beat, watching as she spun her mobile in another small circle on her leg. She wanted the words to describe what she was feeling, wanted to be able to just get it out because she knew that it would help — but she just —

'I just fucking — _ugh_.' She stamped her foot, actually stamped her foot on the wood.

'Ah.' James nodded sagely. 'Too right.'

Lily elbowed him lightly in the side, but his cheek had what was, probably, his intended effect. She was smiling as she said, 'Shut up,' and she finally turned to look at him. She held his gaze for a second before she sighed again, her smile falling away.

And then James moved his hand and rested it on her knee, just below where she was resting her cup of apple juice. It wasn't a big gesture, wasn't anything momentous, but his hand was warm against her leg — she hadn't realised how cold it was outside, how cold she was from sitting out here, until she felt the heat of James' body directly against hers — and it felt surprisingly stabilising there. Like he was tethering her to something, keeping her grounded.

Lily looked at his hand for a second, her eyes running over the long lines of his fingers, before she said, 'My sister's just rubbing it in that she thinks she's the better daughter.'

Lily sighed and looked down at James' hand again. His thumb had started brushing, very lightly, across the outside of her knee, and she watched it for a second, the steady back and forth, before she took a deep breath.

'I couldn't go home again this year. And she's posting on Instagram like "thankful _one of us _could be here" like, fuck off. It's not my fault that I have to be here or that I can't afford the plane ticket home, you know. But then it's like, well I haven't been home at _all_ since I came here for uni and it's been seven years now and I….' She felt tears forming in the corner of her eyes and she took a bracing sip of her juice, her fingers shaking a little as she lifted the cup to her lips.

She exhaled, the force of the sigh heaving some of the weight off her shoulders. 'I miss it. And it's mental, you know, Derry is, but I just love it. And I haven't been home in forever and I feel like I'm always just missing it, you know.' She moved her hand to rest on her stomach, her gut, and James' fingers tightened a little around her knee.

'But then I love it here, too, which also makes me feel guilty.' She breathed a laugh and turned to look at him again. 'All these English bastards around, you know, and here I am, loving it.'

James laughed a little. 'Well, I know it doesn't help, but there's at least one English bastard who's really happy you're here.'

Lily breathed a laugh and leant over to bump her shoulder against his. 'Dickhead.'

James grinned at her. 'Yeah.'

They sat there quietly for a few minutes, the silence sitting comfortably between them, looking up over the roof of the house opposite them towards where the stars would be. She thought that James would move his hand now that she wasn't noticeably in crisis anymore, but his hand stayed put, his thumb tracing back and forth across her denim covered knee.

She found it strangely relaxing.

'I'm sorry you haven't been able to go home,' James said after a minute. He turned to look at her, and he seemed to realise that his hand was still on her leg because he started, his fingers jolting against her, and he pulled his hand away. 'I wish you could spend Christmas with your family.'

'Ah.' Lily shrugged one shoulder and took a long drink of her juice. She was nearly finished it now. 'It's alright. I mean, if I went home, Mam would drag me off to mass, and at this point, I'm pretty sure the crucifix would throw itself off the wall at the sight of me, so.' She grinned at him. 'Maybe it's for the best.'

'Well, maybe,' James breathed a laugh. 'But I still wish you could go home. Be with your family. You work really hard and — I mean, you'd deserve the holiday no matter what, but you _do _and so, you know. You deserve it.'

Lily sort of half shrugged and was about to reply when the door opened behind them. They both turned, squinting a little into the light pouring out into the garden, and found Fleamont looking at them, backlit, but the broad smile still visible on his face.

'There you kids are. Come on, then, dinner's done.'

He was such a happy man, Fleamont. He was just _shining _with an absurd amount of glee.

'Cheers, Dad.' James pushed himself to his feet and, before Lily could even move to stand, James held his hand down for her. She looked at it for a second before she took it and James, his hand warm and firm on hers, pulled her to her feet.

* * *

_WhatsApp_

_23 December 2019_

_Lily Evans: Are you ever going to tell me your parents' address or should I just like fucking divine it (20:34)_

_Lily Evans: Holy St Brendan, by the grace and glory of God, you've been named the protector of navigators and travellers, please guide me on the 25th of December, on the celebration of the birth of our saviour, to the location of James Potter's parents' house (21:43)_

_Lily Evans: He keeps forgetting to tell me the address, St Brendan, and I fear I'll get lost in Primrose Hill, never to be seen round Leyton again. And I know I'm not travelling by sea, but Regents Canal is probably close enough for you to grant your holy protection (21:44)_

_Lily Evans: Cheers, St Brendan. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee (21:44)_

_24 December 2019_

_James Potter: that is the best thing i've ever read (07:17)_

_James Potter: like literally best thing to come off a shift to (07:18)_

_James Potter: and fuck i keep forgetting to text you sozzzz (07:18)_

_James Potter: i just got off so im fucking knackered (thoufh i know you just got on so i'll piss off) (07:18)_

_James Potter: anyway my parents address is 25 fitzroy rd. primrose hill, obv. dinner's at six (07:18)_

_Lily Evans: Wow. Only took you five texts to get your message across. You're improving (07:20)_

_James Potter: [side eye emojis]__ (07:20)_

_James Potter: piss off, evans (07:20)_

_Lily Evans: [wink emoji, blowing kiss emoji] __(07:21)_

_James Potter: im really happy youre coming to dinner btw x (08:01)_

_Lily Evans: Me too x (10:13)_

* * *

When they walked into the dining room, people were milling around the table, peering at the plates before they took their seats, and it took Lily a second to realise that they were looking at name cards and weren't just being really fucking weird.

In her defence, she hadn't thought to expect _name cards_.

'You two are right here near me.' Fleamont patted the corner of the table at the end nearest them and Lily looked down at the cards in front of the plates. Sure enough — _Lily. _To her left — _James. _

She would never tell her mam this — never, not for anything — but this Christmas dinner was one of the best she'd ever had. The turkey was moist, the roast potatoes — Christ, she didn't know _what _they'd done to them, but they were crisp and perfect and delicious and Lily was this close to eating an entire plate of those alone. She just couldn't find a single thing that she could fault, not that she was looking to fault things.

No matter how good everything way, though, it probably would have been a good idea to stop stuffing her mouth full of sprouts and potatoes every two seconds. Like she might have ensured that she would be able to walk to the bus stop when it was time to leave later that evening.

And sitting next to Fleamont, too, was absolutely cracker.

And James was fucking dying, which made it all that much better.

'Did you know that our James was a star footballer in school?' Fleamont said. He was beaming at James, his cheeks a little flushed from, probably, all the wine he'd been drinking.

James was flushed, too, but for entirely different reasons.

'Aye, so he was.' Lily turned to James and smiled, a broad grin on her face. 'You didn't tell me about your football days, James.'

'That's because they were ages ago,' James said. He popped a sprout into his mouth and chewed. 'Lily doesn't want to hear about my glory days, Dad.'

'Well, she knows what you've been up to these days, James,' Fleamont said. 'All you do is work. He hasn't had a date in months, our James.'

Lily had to bite her lip so hard she nearly bit through it to keep from laughing. 'Is that right?'

'It is. And look at him,' he pointed his fork at James who now looked like he wished to god that a black hole would open underneath his chair and suck him into the void. 'He's a handsome fella, don't you think?'

'Aye,' Lily turned to look at him, her eyes moving in one smooth line over his face, lingering, for a beat longer than she meant, on his lips, before she met his gaze. 'He's handsome for an English fella.'

And, even though James was now nearly blood red, he still smiled at her.

They were nearly through dinner — Fleamont had just finished telling a _highly _amusing (and actually incredibly touching) story about James and Sirius getting hauled into the Head's office in Year Ten for painting a rainbow flag on the wall outside school the day of London Pride — when Lily's mobile started vibrating insistently in her back pocket, and she nearly rocketed out of her seat. James' gaze darted swiftly between the table and Lily's phone as she pulled it out of her pocket.

They both made the same sound at the number on her screen, a sort of agonised half groan. Lily laughed a little, her eyes briefly meeting James', and set her hand of James' forearm as she stood.

She said, 'Excuse me,' to the table at large, though really, she sort of muttered it and so she was sure that no one ended up hearing her, and pressed her mobile to her ear as she stepped out into the corridor.

'This is Dr Evans.'

God, she never got tired of saying that.

'Lily, this is Sarah, how're you doing, love?'

'Oh, alright, Sarah,' Lily stepped a little further up the corridor. 'What's going on?'

'I'm sorry to tell you, Lily, but we need you to come in. We've had a fair sight more people in tonight between drink driving and spilling hot oil on themselves, and we just had someone walk in with a knife through their hand and we could just — well, not to be crass, but we could use the extra hand.'

'Aye, alright, Sarah,' Lily had pressed her lips together to try not to laugh, so she knew she was sounding a little strained. 'I'm in Primrose Hill, actually, so I'll be there shortly. Give me twenty minutes.'

Lily rang off and stuffed her mobile back into her back pocket as she strode quickly back down the corridor. James looked up as she walked through the door.

'Headed out?'

She nodded and turned to Fleamont. 'Fleamont,' he looked up at her and she smiled at him, 'I've just got called in to the hospital, so I've got to go.'

'Oh, no,' he moved to stand, but Lily waved him off. She bent down and pressed a parting kiss to his cheek.

'Thank you so much for having me. Euphemia,' Lily turned and walked swiftly up table, 'thanks for having me. I just got called in so.' She kissed Euphemia's cheek.

Euphemia frowned at her. 'Everything alright?'

'Aye, everything's fine,' she waved her hand casually. The last thing she wanted was for Euphemia to follow her in and ruin her own holiday. 'Just the usual things. Nothing we can't handle.'

Euphemia looked like she didn't quite believe her, but she didn't get up and try to follow Lily out of the dining room either.

James was still watching her as she walked back down the table. Because she couldn't help herself, she grabbed her fork, speared the last roast potato she had on her plate and popped it into her mouth before she gathered her plate up one hand, grabbing her cutlery in the other. James shot immediately to his feet and held out his hands.

'You don't — I'll take that, Lily, come on.' He took the things out of her hands and set them down onto the table.

'I can clean up my —'

'You don't,' James said, ignoring her protests. 'I've got it. And I'll walk you to the tube station. Unless you're calling a car?'

'Nah,' Lily shook her head. 'Tube. It'll be about as fast, I reckon. And you're not walking me.'

James nodded and pushed in his chair. 'Sure.'

Lily started walking out of the dining room, and James followed her, easily matching her pace. She raised an eyebrow at him as she opened the coat cupboard, but James just grabbed his coat off the hanger, a knee length, caramel coloured thing that, she swallowed, _really _suited him, and slid it on.

'Come on,' he said, fastening the buttons on his coat. 'I _know _you do this literally all the time, but I'm just not keen on the idea of you walking to the tube station by yourself at night.'

'You're right,' she said, cocking an eyebrow at him, 'I do do this literally all the time.'

Still, they walked down the steps of his house together and started down Fitzroy Street towards Gloucester Avenue. The pub on Gloucester was already busy as they passed, and Lily looked at it a little longingly as they walked by.

'You headed there later?' She nodded her head at the pub.

James shook his head. 'Christ, no. The old local's up on Regent's Park Road. And I don't know if we're going to be heading out tonight or what, though. I'm sure Sirius'll want to.'

'You should go,' Lily said. 'Have a drink for me.'

James smirked. 'Oh yeah?'

She nodded. 'I'll be treating someone with a knife through the hand, so you can have an extra vodka soda on my behalf.'

'Honestly, I think I'd rather be treating the knife through the hand.'

Lily snorted. 'You're fucked in the head.'

'Oh,' James laughed, his loud, rich laugh that Lily loved, 'like you wouldn't rather be treating it, too.'

They chatted aimlessly as they crossed the bridge over the rail lines, laughing about things that had happened at the hospital over the last week. They occasionally worked the same shift, but, more often than not, they were coming on one after the other, like she'd worked day and he was working nights or vice versa, or they were working a day apart, and so they liked to swap stories whenever they were together again.

'We haven't worked together in a while,' James said, frowning at her as they passed the yoga studio on the corner of Regent's Park Road and Bridge Approach. 'I'm starting to think Mikhel is scheduling us this way on purpose.'

Lily rolled her eyes. 'He's not.'

'He could be. Maybe Justin convinced him to because he's pissed off with us for hanging out without him.'

'Well, if Justin weren't a UKIP-loving cunt, maybe we would want to spend time with him.'

James snorted. 'Too right.'

They slowed as they turned onto Adelaide Road, not much, you know, but enough that she noticed the deceleration. Lily knew that she needed to keep pace — she was going into the hospital, you know, it wasn't like she didn't have anywhere to be — but she felt the strangest feeling in her stomach at the thought of leaving and she just couldn't seem to bring her feet to move any faster.

They came to a stop outside the station entrance, Lily stuffing her hands into her pockets against the cold as she turned to face him.

'Thanks for walking me.' Lily shifted her weight between her feet.

James nodded. 'Any time. Have a safe trip.' He paused for a beat. 'Can you text me when you get there? So I know you got there safe?'

Lily laughed. 'Aye, mam, I'll text you.'

James frowned at her. 'I just worry.'

'I know you do,' she said. She reached out and rested her hand on his forearm. 'It's sweet.'

She left her hand there for a second, a moment longer than she probably normally would have done, and they both looked at it as it fell back into the space between them.

'Anyway,' Lily cleared her throat, slipping her hand into her pocket again. 'I'd better jet. Knife hand awaits.'

James laughed and then — and she hadn't been expecting it — he leant down and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. And there was something about him leaning closer to her that sent Lily's heart screaming in her chest, started it hammering so hard against her ribs that she was sure he'd be able to hear it from outside her body. She was disappointed, then — and she'd admit it to herself, damn it, no matter what it cost her — when he just brushed his lips against her cheek. When he didn't turn his head, when he didn't linger.

That's all it would have taken. A moment's hesitation. A glance down at her lips.

That's all it would have taken and Lily would have kissed him properly.

The realisation surprised her.

It probably shouldn't've done, Marlene had fucking been telling her that she had feelings for James for months now, but —

'Goodnight, Lil,' James said. He smiled at her, a mischievous little thing, and she laughed, shaking her head at him and shifting her bag so it was situated more comfortably on her shoulder.

'Goodnight, James.'

* * *

_WhatsApp_

_25 December 2019_

_James Potter: ok so im sorry about dad tonight (23:01)_

_James Potter: ive given him quite the dressing down about it (23:01)_

_James Potter: i cant believe i didnt realiase what he was up to (23:01)_

_James Potter: so im sorry for being a fucking idiot as well (23:01)_

_26 December 2019_

_Lily Evans: ? What are you talking about ? Fleamont is delightful (02:26)_

_James Potter: oh uh (07:13)_

_James Potter: nevermind then (07:13)_

_Lily Evans: NOOO you need to explain yourself, Potter (11:52)_

_James Potter: well but it's sort of awkward (11:54)_

_Lily Evans: James Potter SO HELP ME (11:54)_

_James Potter: ok ugh (11:54)_

_James Potter: fuck (11:55)_

_James Potter: so dad was trying to do a matchmaker thing at dinner apparently (11:56)_

_James Potter: and im really really sorry i didnt tell hin to do it i swear (11:56)_

* * *

'Why are you looking at your phone like that?'

Lily jumped, her head jerking up so that she could meet Marlene's gaze. 'What?'

'You.' Marlene nodded her head once in Lily's direction. 'You were staring at your bloody mobile with this weird look on your face.'

'What did I look like?'

'I don't fucking know, like —' Marlene scrunched up her face and Lily snorted. Marlene shot her a look. 'Just tell me why you were looking like that.'

'I —' Lily looked back down at her messages. _Matchmaker_. 'It was a tweet about fucking Boris Johnson.'

'Ugh.' Marlene fake vomited with such force and volume that Lily was positive it had woken the people in the block of flats down the road. 'Fuck that arsehole.'

'Indeed.'

She was too tired to deal with this this morning. For her brain to even properly understand what the fuck James was talking about. She'd gotten in at seven that morning and collapsed immediately into bed, but she still hadn't slept enough to really count herself properly rested. Something that, you know, she needed to sort out because she was going to be working again tonight and she was going to fucking crash if she didn't get a little more sleep.

Chugging tea like it was her job right now was probably not the way to go about achieving that end, but she couldn't just sleep the entire day away. She needed to get, like. Washing done.

Not that it really mattered when she only ever wore hospital-issue scrubs anyway, but still. She couldn't keep showing up to the hospital in the same jumper and joggers every day. People were going to think she didn't own anything else.

But now here she was, sat on the sofa, trying to make herself resemble a human being, staring at a text from James about how his dad had, apparently, been trying his damndest to fix them up last night.

Why he'd thought that telling her a bunch of stories about James when he was a wain would be what got her hot, Lily would never know, though, she supposed that it endeared her to him. You know, more than she was already sort of….. Endeared to him.

She'd thought about him at work last night a lot more than she would've liked to have done, especially because she was busy treating patients and her mind should, probably, have been a hundred per cent on the fact that she was removing knives from hands and dressing oil burns all night. She'd focused through the knife — she was still new enough to those sorts of wounds and no wound was every really the same anyway and so she had to pay a good bit of attention to make sure that she was fixing it up right, but the burns they had rolling through A&E weren't so bad that she honestly needed to think that much about what she was doing.

Clean the wound, ointment, dressing, repeat.

She felt like a shitty doctor, actually, thinking about it now. How preoccupied she'd been last night. She wasn't distracted, she wouldn't go so far as to say that she was distracted, but, you know.

She'd just found herself, in between patients, while she was filling out charts… she found her mind wandering.

And it wandered, more often than not, to the stretch of pavement along Adelaide Road where James had kissed her goodbye.

Or, her cheek. Kissed her cheek.

Lily took a deep breath and, because she knew she couldn't leave James' text message read and unresponded to forever, she typed out a quick reply.

_Lily Evans: Well shit (12:01)_

It wasn't a great response, but it was the one she was going with.

* * *

_WhatsApp_

_26 December 2019_

_James Potter: i have to confess i have no idea what that means (12:01)_

_James Potter: like 'well shit' in a good way or (12:01)_

_James Potter: i dont actually know how you can mean tha tin a good way though (12:02)_

_James Potter: i'm not freaking out about it though, defo not, so don't worry (12:02)_

_Lily Evans: I'm….. not sure how I mean it (12:03)_

_James Potter: helpful (12:03)_

_Lily Evans: [side eye emoji]__ (12:03)_

_Lily Evans: Look, I work tonight, but maybe we can meet up for coffee before I'm supposed to head in (12:04)_

_Lily Evans: I'll need the caffeine anyway (12:04)_

_James Potter: three texts in a row! i'm rubbing off on you, lil (12:04)_

_Lily Evans: ….. Do you want to get coffee or not (12:05)_

_James Potter: yes please (12:05)_

* * *

She'd expected to meet James outside the Starbucks on Euston Road, roughly across from the hospital, but he texted her as she was getting off the tube and let her know that he was going to meet her at Euston Square station instead.

_James Potter: im getting off the tube there anyway so i might as well (17:54)_

She'd really been counting on those last few minutes to get herself together, but she couldn't exactly fault him for proposing this plan either. They were getting off at the same tube station for fuck's sake, they'd probably run into each other anyway. And then what was she going to do, ignore him? Run up the pavement and pretend she couldn't see him?

Despite the fact that her sleep schedule was not exactly in good nick at the moment, Lily was in surprisingly decent shape as she walked through the tube station towards the station exit. She'd gotten a bit more sleep that afternoon, had a coffee on her way out the door, and she was nervous, sure, but she only had to sit through this conversation for an hour, so if things became unbearably awkward between them, she had a dead end planned, a time past which they could not continue to stare and/or blather at each other (assuming that staring or blathering was what she was in for — she was sure that there were other options that she just wasn't thinking of).

James was standing just on the other side of the turnstiles when she got off the escalator, his eyes scanning the station. He spotted her almost at exactly the moment she noticed him standing there, and he smiled and lifted his hand in greeting as she walked through the gates out to meet him.

'Hey.' He leant down a little like he was going to kiss her cheek again, but he seemed to catch himself halfway because he stopped suddenly, his expression suddenly nervous. Lily took a quick breath and closed the distance between them, pushing up onto her toes and kissing him hello.

'Hey.'

There was a softness in his eyes as she pulled away, a certain ease about the way he was looking at her. The corners of his lips were turned up just barely, slightly enough that she noticed it, that it brought a whole lightness to his face, but not enough that he was really, truly smiling.

'So, excited to have the night off?' She turned and, together, they started over towards the lift that would take them up to the street.

'God, you bet I am,' James said. He was smiling at her, but she could tell that he also felt a little guilty about it, too, by the restraint at the edges of his expression. He was trying, really trying, not to gloat. 'I'm fucking exhausted from Christmas, and I didn't even host.'

They chatted a little bit about what she'd been up to at the hospital the night before — she'd walked him, sick bastards that they were, through all the ins and outs of some of the more interesting patients she'd treated, talked about the surgery she'd gotten to assist on — but, once they were in Starbucks and it was going to be a little easier to overhear them, they transitioned to talking about the rest of James' evening instead.

'Sirius was apparently very taken with you,' James said. 'He, uh,' he ran an awkward hand through his hair, 'said he got your number?'

Lily nodded and James sighed. 'I hope he hasn't been harrassing you.'

Lily laughed and shook her head. 'No, god. He hasn't even texted me once.'

James sighed in relief and Lily quirked an eyebrow at him. 'Is he the sort that would harass me?'

'I mean, with my family at this point,' James muttered. Lily expected him to have more to say on the subject, but he stayed silent. And then, a few seconds later, it was their turn at the till, and they were too busy placing their orders to talk.

It was busier than either of them had anticipated — idiots, because of course the store would be busy on Boxing Day — so Lily grabbed the last free table, the one in the far corner over near the window, while James waited over at the counter for their drinks. In spite of her best efforts, Lily found herself watching him as she sat there, the way that he kept moving his hands around, seemingly nervous but actually, probably, just restless.

He was always bloody restless at work, too. Fiddling with his badge, clicking his pen, tapping his fingers against the countertop while he waited for their scribe software to load (it took _so _fucking long, it was actually incredibly annoying). Now, he was standing there, carefully touching his fingertips to his thumb, one after the other and smoothly increasing his speed. She'd seen him do this a million times before and, apparently, because she'd asked him about it once, it was his way of "improving his finger dexterity".

Even just remembering that now made her cheeks go hot.

Thank god she hadn't told Marlene about that. She'd never hear the fucking end of it.

James walked back over to her table in the corner with her drinks a few minutes later, an otherwise plain latte with a pump of the toffee syrup for her and an _eggnog latte _for James. She gagged, actually gagged, when he told her what he'd ordered.

'That's awful,' she said. 'Actually fucking awful.'

James just grinned at her and drank an enormous swig.

And then he'd immediately exhaled hard, swearing, because he'd burnt the hell out of his mouth.

Lily had only laughed at him a little bit. Or, you know, a lot, but he'd deserved it.

Now that they were sat there, drinks cooling slowly between them, the pressure to actually have the conversation that they were there for returned. She hadn't forgotten about it, per se, but she hadn't been letting herself think about it while they'd been walking along the pavement, chattering away, and she certainly hadn't been thinking about it while she'd been looking at James a few minutes ago. But she knew, now, that if she kept putting the conversation off, it was just going to get more awkward than it already was (not that she was necessarily feeling awkward) and, let's be honest, she was always a fan of just pulling off the plaster and getting it over with.

'So, your dad was… trying to? Get me to….'

Ah, yes. There she was. Ripping off the plaster.

James took a swift sip of his (now cooler) coffee. 'Get you to fall in love with me, yes.'

If she'd been drinking, she would have choked.

'I — uh.'

'I don't —' James ran a hand through his hair. 'I'm sorry about that.' He shook his head and he looked, genuinely, so sorry. 'It wasn't right of him to be acting like that and I shouted at him, maybe a little more than I should've done to be honest, but I told him that it wasn't okay for him to be, you know.' James waved his hand. 'Trying to set us up like that without talking to either of us. I don't want you to have felt uncomfortable.'

And she could see how genuinely anguished he was about it, how concerned he was that she'd left the house last night, like, fully suppressing some kind of feeling about him or his dad or whatever (he was half right there, but not in the way that he was thinking) and now here he was in front of her, fucking cacking himself over feelings that she wasn't having.

She wasn't uncomfortable. Not about this anyway. And she wasn't uncomfortable in a bad way.

Well, it felt sort of bad, having to talk about her feelings, but that was only because she was too fucking repressed to function properly and that wasn't James' fault. That was probably Catholicism's fault. If she had to pick a culprit.

'I mean, I —' She took a deep breath and looked down, briefly, at the coffee in her hands, spinning the cup once before she tightened her fingers around it. 'James, I'm not upset about it.'

He frowned, his eyebrows knitting together behind his glasses. 'What do you mean?'

Oh, fucking hell.

'I'm not upset about him, like —' She waved her hand vaguely. It was no clearer an explanation, and James was still sitting there staring at her like she'd sprouted a second fucking head.

'I like you.' She practically blurted it out and James' eyes going wide, apparently, weren't enough to stop her verbally incontinent tirade. 'I like you, and so I'm not upset about him trying to, like, set us up or whatever, except for the fact that it was sort of wasted effort on his part because I was already basically at where he was hoping I would be.'

James just looked at her for a moment. A long, agonising beat of her heart that honestly had Lily contemplating just diving out the window and rolling across the pavement straight into traffic.

Finally, James came to. Like literally seemed to fall right back into his body.

'You like me?'

Jesus fucking Christ.

'I like you.' She took a deep, shaky breath. 'A good bit, actually.'

James breathed a laugh. 'Well, shit.'

'I have to confess,' Lily said, smiling a little in spite of the fact that her heart was nearly hammering out of her chest right now, 'I have no idea what that means.'

'It means,' James moved one hand across the table, his hand coming to rest overtop of hers, 'that if I hadn't just drunk half an eggnog latte, I'd be snogging the absolute life out of you right now.'

Lily laughed a little shakily, the excitement bubbling in her chest almost too much for her to handle. 'Well, shit.'

James tipped his head at her. 'Indeed.'

The heat in his eyes now, almost liquid in its intensity, between that and the soft brush of his thumb across her knuckles….

Fucking hell, she wanted to strip him out of his clothes and fuck him right in the middle of this packed Starbucks.

She couldn't decide if that was better or worse than wanting to fuck him in A&E.

'So…' She looked down at their hands on the table before she met his gaze again and, slowly, wormed her hand out from underneath his. She reached down and pulled her mobile out of her jacket pocket. 'When's your next day off? I feel like we're going to have to do something about this.'

'Oh, are we?' James laughed a little, but he still pulled his mobile out of his jacket and unlocked it. He scrolled for a second. 'I'm off the thirty-first. I work the first, but that's a night shift.'

'Oh, aye, me, too.' She grinned up at him before, christ, something clicked in the back of her head. 'Oh, fucking hell. Are we really going to be that cliche?'

James quirked an eyebrow at her. 'Whaddya mean?'

'That's New Years fucking Eve.' Lily shot him a look. 'Are we really —'

'You seem like you're getting mighty presumptuous over there, Dr Evans.' James raised his eyebrows at her, a cheeky smile on his face, and Lily did her best to ignore the fact that she _really _liked it when he called her Dr Evans.

Lily gave him the finger and, ignoring James' low chuckle across from her, tapped her calendar and entered in a reminder on the afternoon of the thirty-first.

_Bring change of clothes to James'_

* * *

**Come find me on tumblr. Same username :)**


End file.
